To the Christian the following quotation will mean much. In it we hearthe echo of Masefield's The Everlasting Mercy; or of that marvelousstory of the regeneration of a human soul in Tolstoy's TheResurrection; an old-fashioned conversion of a human being; aPaul's on the road to Damascus experience. And the tragedy is that justabout the time that the world of literature is being fascinated withthis story of "Rebirth" the church seems to be forgetting it. It istold in the first verse of Ex Tenebris--"The Lay of the King Who RoseAgain":

"Take away my rage! Take away my sin! Strip me all bare Of that I did wear-- The foul rags, the base rags, The rude and the mean! Strip me, yea strip me Right down to my skin! Strip me all bare Of that I have been! Then wash me in water, In fair running water, Wash me without, And wash me within, In fair running water, In fresh running water, Wash me, ah wash me, And make me all clean! --Clean of the soilure And clean of the sin, --Clean of the soul-crushing Sense of defilure, --Clean of the old self, And clean of the sin! In fair running water, In fresh running water, In sun-running water, All sweet and all pure, Wash me, ah wash me, And I shall be clean."

The Fiery Cross

GOD AND HIS VOICE

From the voice of Christ and the voice of the cross it is not far tohear the voice of God either in life or in John Oxenham's books. Behindthe cross and behind the Christ stands the Father, and a treatment ofthis great poet's writings would not be complete if one did not quote afew excerpts from his writings to show that God was ever present"keeping watch above his own."

The first note we catch of the Father's voice is in "The Call of theDead":

"One way there is--one only-- Whereby ye may stand sure; One way by which ye may understand All foes, and Life's High Ways command, And make your building sure.--- Take God once more as Counselor, Work with Him, hand in hand, Build surely, in His Grace and Power, The nobler things that shall endure, And, having done all--STAND!"

The Vision Splendid.

And as the poet has walked the streets of America and elsewhere and hasseen the service flag, which in "Each window shrines a name," he hasfelt God everywhere. In "The Leaves of the Golden Book" he comfortsthose who mourn:

"God will gather all these scattered Leaves into His Golden Book, Torn and crumpled, soiled and battered, He will heal them with a look. Not one soul of them has perished; No man ever yet forsook Wife and home, and all he cherished, And God's purpose undertook, But he met his full reward In the 'Well Done' of his Lord!"

The Vision Splendid.

So it is that over and over we hear this note, wrung from theexperiences of war, that those who give up all, to die for God's plan,to take the cross in suffering that the world may be better; theseshall have life eternal. And who dares to dispute it?

In "Our Share" we are admonished that we must find God anew:

"Heads of sham gold and feet of crumbling clay, If we would build anew and build to stay, We must find God again, And go His way."

All's Well.

Oxenham does not claim to fully understand the world cataclysm any morethan some of the rest of us. If we all had to understand, we might findourselves ineligible for the Kingdom, but the Book says everywhere, "Hethat believeth on me shall have everlasting life." And we can believewhether we understand or no. So voices the poet in "God's Handwriting":

"He writes in characters too grand For our short sight to understand; We catch but broken strokes, and try To fathom all the mystery Of withered hopes, of deaths, of life, The endless war, the useless strife,-- But there, with larger, clearer sight, We shall see this-- HIS WAY WAS RIGHT."

All's Well,

What better way to close this brief interpretation of our poet in thisday of darkness and hate and hurt and war and woe and want, of seeinghopelessness and helplessness, than with these heartening lines from"God Is":

"God is; God sees; God loves; God knows. And Right is Right; And Right is Might. In the full ripeness of His Time, All these His vast prepotencies Shall round their grace-work to the prime Of full accomplishment, And we shall see the plan sublime Of His beneficent intent. Live on in hope! Press on in faith! Love conquers all things, Even Death."

All's Well.

[Illustration: ALFRED NOYES.]

VI

ALFRED NOYES[Footnote: The poetical selections appearing in this chapter are usedby permission, and are taken from Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes, twovolumes, copyright, 1913, by the Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.]

A STUDY OF CHILDHOOD, OF MANHOOD, CHRISTHOOD, AND GODHOOD

If one wants to find the tenderest, most completely sympathetic studyof childhood, one that finds echo not only in the heart of thegrown-up, but in the heart of children the world over, he must this daygo to Alfred Noyes. If you want proof of this, read "The Forest of WildThyme" or "The Flower of Old Japan" to your children and watch them sitwith open mouths and open hearts to hear these wonder fairy tales. And,further, if you are too grown-up to want to read Noyes for his completesympathy with childhood, more universal even than our beloved Riley;and you want a poet that challenges you to a more vigorous manhood, apoet who calls man to his highest and deepest virility, read Noyes. Or,if you happen to need a clearer, firmer insight into the man of Galileeand Calvary, read Noyes; and, finally, if you want firmer, morerocklike foundations to plant your faith in God upon, read Noyes, forherein one finds all of these. From childhood to Godhood is, indeed,a wide range for a poet to take, and yet they are akin.

As another poet has said, none less than Edwin Markham, "Know man andyou will know the deep of God." And as Noyes himself says in theintroduction to "The Forest of Wild Thyme":

"Husband, there was a happy day, Long ago in love's young May, When, with a wild-flower in your hand You echoed that dead poet's cry-- 'Little flower, but if I could understand!' And you saw it had roots in the depth of the sky, And there in that smallest bud lay furled The secret and meaning of all the world."

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And when we know that the mother was talking about "Little Peterkin,"their lost baby, we know that she meant that in a little child therelay furled "The secret and meaning of all the world."

And so, beginning with childhood, through those intermediate steps ofmanhood and Christhood, with Noyes leading us, as he literally leadsthe little tots through the mysteries of Old Japan and the Wild Thyme,let us go from tree to tree, and flower to flower, and hope to hope,and pain to pain, up to God, from whence we came. It is a clear sweetpathway that he leads us.

CHILDHOOD AND ITS GLORY

Noyes assumes something that we all know for truth: that "Grown-ups donot understand" childhood. But after reading this sweet poet we knowthat he does understand; and we thank God for him. In Part II of "TheForest of Wild Thyme" one sees this clearly.

"O, grown-ups cannot understand, And grown-ups never will, How short's the way to fairyland Across the purple hill: They smile: their smile is very bland, Their eyes are wise and chill; And yet--at just a child's command-- The world's an Eden still."

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

Thank the stars that watch over us in love that the great-heartedpoets, and the children of the world--at least those little ones that ahalf-way Christian civilization has not robbed of childhood--know that"The world's an Eden still."

From the prelude to "The Flower of Old Japan" comes that same note,like a bluebird in springtime, that note of belief, of trust, of hope:

"Do you remember the blue stream; The bridge of pale bamboo; The path that seemed a twisted dream Where everything came true; The purple cheery-trees; the house With jutting eaves below the boughs; The mandarins in blue, With tiny tapping, tilted toes, With curious curved mustachios?

* * * * *

"Ah, let us follow, follow far Beyond the purple seas; Beyond the rosy foaming bar, The coral reef, the trees, The land of parrots and the wild That rolls before the fearless child In ancient mysteries: Onward, and onward if we can, To Old Japan, to Old Japan."

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And "The Forest of Wild Thyme" is full of the echos of fairy tales andchildhood rhymes heard the world over. Little Peterkin, who went withthe children to "Old Japan," is dead now:

And so, they go to the last place they saw him, the old God's Acre, andfall asleep amid the wild thyme blooming there. As they dream the thymegrows to the size of trees, and they wander about in the forest huntingfor Peterkin.

As they hunted they found out who killed Cock Robin. They appeal toLittle Boy Blue to help them hunt for Peterkin:

"Little Boy Blue, you are gallant and brave, There was never a doubt in those clear, bright eyes. Come, challenge the grim, dark Gates of the Grave As the skylark sings to those infinite skies!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

The King of Fairyland gives command to Pease-Blossom:

"And cried, Pease-blossom, Mustard-Seed! You know the old command; Well; these are little children; you must lead them on to Peterkin!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

They even discovered, as they were led on by Pease-Blossom and Mustard-Seed, how fairies were born:

"Men upon earth Bring us to birth Gently at even and morn! When as brother and brother They greet one another And smile--then a fairy is born!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And, too, they found why fairies die:

"But at each cruel word Upon earth that is heard, Each deed of unkindness or hate, Some fairy must pass From the games in the grass And steal through the terrible Gate."

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And they learned what it took to make a rose:

"'What is there hid in the heart of a rose, Mother-mine?' 'Ah, who knows, who knows, who knows? A man that died on a lonely hill May tell you perhaps, but none other will, Little child.'

"'What does it take to make a rose, Mother-mine?' 'The God that died to make it knows. It takes the world's eternal wars, It takes the moon and all the stars, It takes the might of heaven and hell And the everlasting Love as well, Little child.'"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And they heard the old tales over:

"And 'See-Saw; Margery Daw,' we heard a rollicking shout, As the swing boats hurtled over our heads to the tune of the roundabout; And 'Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn,' we heard the showmen cry, And 'Dickery Dock, I'm as good as a clock,' we heard the swings reply."

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

Then at last they found their little brother Peterkin in "The Babe ofBethlehem."

And if this were not enough to make the reader see how completely andwholly and sympathetically Noyes understood the child heart, hear thisword from his great soul:

"Kind little eyes that I love, Eyes forgetful of mine, In a dream I am bending above Your sleep and you open and shine; And I know as my own grow blind With a lonely prayer for your sake, He will hear--even me--little eyes that were kind, God bless you, asleep or awake!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

MANHOOD AND ITS VIGOR

Virility like unto steel is the very mark of Noyes. But as this studyof Childhood has shown, it is a virility touched with tenderness. AsBayard Taylor sings:

"The bravest are the tenderest, The loving are the daring!"

And this is Noyes. Noyes knew Manhood, he sang it, he challenged ittoo, he crowned it in "Drake"; he placed it a little lower than thegods. Hear this supreme word, enough to lift man to the skies:

"Where, what a dreamer yet, in spite of all, Is man, that splendid visionary child Who sent his fairy beacon through the dusk!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

This tribute to Marlow--how eaglelike it is! How suggestive of heights,and mountain peaks and blue skies and far-flung stars!

"But he who dared the thunder-roll, Whose eagle-wings could soar, Buffeting down the clouds of night, To beat against the Light of Light, That great God-blinded eagle-soul, We shall not see him more!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

Then he makes us one with all that is granite and flower and high andholy in "The Loom of the Years":

"One with the flower of a day, one with the withered moon, One with the granite mountains that melt into the noon, One with the dream that triumphs beyond the light of the spheres, We come from the Loom of the Weaver, that weaves the Web of the years."

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

From "Drake" again this ringing word:

"His face was like a king's face as he spake, For sorrows that strike deep reveal the deep; And through the gateways of a ragged wound Sometimes a God will drive his chariot wheels From some deep heaven within the hearts of men!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

CHRISTHOOD AND ITS CALVARY

From childhood to manhood through Christhood to Godhood is aprogression that Noyes sees clearly and makes us see as clearly.Somehow Christ is very real to Noyes. He is not a historical characterfar off. He is the Christ of here and now; the Christ that meets ourevery need; as real as a dearly beloved friend next door to us. No poetsees the Christ more clearly.

First he caught the meanings of Christ's gospel of new birth. He wasnot confused on that. He knows:

"The task is hard to learn While all the songs of Spring return Along the blood and sing.

"Yet hear--from her deep skies, How Art, for all your pain, still cries, _Ye must be born again_!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And who could put his worship more beautifully than the poet does in"The Symbolist"?

"Help me to seek that unknown land! I kneel before the shrine. Help me to feel the hidden hand That ever holdeth mine.

"I kneel before the Word, I kneel Before the Cross of flame. I cry, as through the gloom I steal, The glory of the Name."

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

Christ's face, and his life experiences, here and there slip out of thelines of this English poet with an insistence that cannot but win theheart of the world, especially the heart of the Christian. Here andthere in the most unexpected places his living presence stands beforeyou, with, to use another of the poet's own lines, "Words that wouldmake the dead arise," as in "Vicisti, Galilee":

"Poor, scornful Lilliputian souls, And are ye still too proud To risk your little aureoles By kneeling with the crowd?

* * * * *

"And while ye scoff, on every side Great hints of Him go by,--Souls that are hourly crucified On some new Calvary!"

* * * * *

"In flower and dust, in chaff and grain, He binds Himself and dies! We live by His eternal pain, His hourly sacrifice."

* * * * *

"And while ye scoff from shore to shore From sea to moaning sea, 'Eloi, eloi,' goes up once more, 'Lama sabachthani!' The heavens are like a scroll unfurled, The writing flames above-- This is the King of all the World Upon His Cross of Love!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And there in the very midst of "Drake," that poem of a great seafighter, comes this quatrain unexpectedly, showing the Christ always inthe background of the poet's mind. He uses the Christ eagerly as afigure, as a help to his thought. He always puts the Christ and hiscross to the fore:

Then in "The Old Skeptic" we hear these of the Christ in the concludinglines:

"I will go back to my home and look at the wayside flowers, And hear from the wayside cabin the kind old hymns again, Where Christ holds out His arms in the quiet evening hours, And the light of the chapel porches broods on the peaceful lane.

"And there I shall hear men praying the deep old foolish prayers, And there I shall see once more, the fond old faith confessed, And the strange old light on their faces who hear as a blind man hears-- 'Come unto me, ye weary, and I will give you rest.'

"I will go back and believe in the deep old foolish tales, And pray the simple prayers that I learned at my mother's knee, Where the Sabbath tolls its peace, through the breathless mountain-vales, And the sunset's evening hymn hallows the listening sea."

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

GODHOOD AT LAST AND SURELY

He finds God. There is no uncertainty about it. From childhood toGodhood has the poet come, and we have come with him. It has beena triumphant journey upward. But we have not been afraid. Even theblinding light of God's face has not made us tremble. We havelearned to know him through this climb upward and upward to his throne.

At first it was uncertain. The poet had to challenge us to one greatend in "The Paradox":

"But one thing is needful; and ye shall be true To yourself and the goal and the God that ye seek; Yea, the day and the night shall requite it to you If ye love one another, if your love be not weak!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

For he knew the heart hunger for God that was in every human breast:

"I am full-fed, and yet I hunger! Who set this fiercer famine in my maw? Who set this fiercer hunger in my heart?"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

From "Drake" comes that scintillating line: "A scribble of God's fingerin the sky"; and an admonition to the preacher: "Thou art God'sminister, not God's oracle!"

Nor did he forget that man, in his search for God, is, after all, butman, and weak! So from "Tales of a Mermaid Tavern":

"... and of that other Ocean Where all men sail so blindly, and misjudge Their friends, their charts, their storms, their stars, their _God!_"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

Even like unto "Bo'sin Bill," who was and is a prevalent type, but nota serious type--that man who claims to be an atheist, but in times ofstress, like unto us all, turns to God. And what humorous creatures weare! Enough to make God smile, if he did not love us so much:

"But our bo'sin Bill was an atheist still Ex-cept--sometimes--in the dark!"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And again from "The Paradox":

"Flashing forth as a flame, The unnameable Name, The ineffable Word, _I am the Lord_!"

"I am the End to which the whole world strives: Therefore are ye girdled with a wild desire and shod With sorrow; for among you all no soul Shall ever cease, or sleep, or reach its goal Of union and communion with the Whole Or rest content with less than being God."

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

And thus we find God, with Noyes. And I have saved for the lastquotation one from "The Origin of Life," which the poet says is"Written in answer to certain scientific theories." I save it for thelast because, strangely, it sums up all the journey that we have passedthrough, from childhood to God-hood:

"Watched the great hills like clouds arise and set, And one--named Olivet; When you have seen as a shadow passing away, One child clasp hands and pray; When you have seen emerge from that dark mire One martyr ringed with fire; Or, from that Nothingness, by special grace One woman's love-lit face...."

* * * * *

"Dare you re-kindle then, One faith for faithless men, And say you found, on that dark road you trod, In the beginning, _God_?"

Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.

[Illustration: JOHN MASEFIELD.]

VII

JOHN MASEFIELD, POET FOR THE PULPIT[Footnote: The poetical selections appearing in this chapter are usedby permission, and are taken from the following works: The EverlastingMercy and the Widow in the Bye Street, Salt Water Poems and Ballads,and Good Friday, published by The Macmillan Company, New York.]

To climb is to achieve. We like to see men achieve; and the harder thatachievement is, the more we thrill to it. For that reason we all have ahope to climb a Shasta, or a Whitney, or a Hood to its whitest peak,and glory in the achievement. And because of this human delight in theclimb we thrill to see a man climb out of sin, or out of difficulty, orout of defeat to triumph.

From "bar-boy" to poet is a great achievement, a great climb, or leap,or lift, whichever figure you may prefer, but that is exactly whatJohn Masefield did.

Perhaps Hutton's figure may describe it better--"The Leap to God." Atleast ten years ago John Masefield, a wanderer on the face of theearth, found himself in New York city without friends and withoutmeans, and it was not to him an unusual thing to accept the position of"bar-boy" in a New York saloon. This particular profession has withinits scope the duties of wiping the beer bottles, sweeping the floor,and other menial tasks.

And now John Masefield has within recent months come to New York cityto be the lauded and feted. Newspaper reporters met him as his boatlanded, eager for his every word; Carnegie Hall was crowded to hear himread from his own poetry; and his journey across the country was just agreat triumph from New York to San Francisco.

Something had happened in those ten years. This man had achieved. Thispoet had climbed to God. This man had experienced the "Soul's Leap toGod." He had found that Man of all men who once said, "If I be liftedup, I will draw all men unto me." He always lifts men out of nothinginto the glory of the greatest achievement. Yes, something had happenedin those ten years.

And the things that had happened in those ten years are perfectlyapparent in his writings if one follow them from the beginning to theend. And the things that had happened I shall trace through this poet'swritings from the first, boyhood verses of "Salt Water Ballads" to"Good Friday"; and therein lies the secret; and incidentally thereinlies some of the most thrilling human touches, vivid illustrations forthe preacher; some of the most intensely interesting religiousexperiences that any biography ever revealed consciously orunconsciously.

I. THE SOUL PSYCHOLOGY OF HIS YOUTH IN "SALT WATER BALLADS"

One may search these "Salt Water Ballads" through from the opening lineof "Consecration" to "The Song At Parting" and find no faint suggestionof that deep religious glory of "The Everlasting Mercy." This book waswritten, even as Masefield says, "in my boyhood; all of it in myyouth." He has not caught the deeper meaning of life yet--the spiritualmeaning--although he has caught the social meaning, just as Markham hascaught it.

1. _Social Consciousness_

Even in "Consecration" we hear the challenging ring of a young voicewho has wandered over the face of the earth and has taken his placewith the "Outcast," has cast his lot with the sailor, the stoker, thetramp.

"Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road, The slave with the sack on his shoulders pricked on with the goad, The man with too weighty a burden, too weary a load. "Others may sing of the wine and the wealth, and the mirth, The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth; Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust, and the scum of the earth!

* * * * *

"Mine be a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould. Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold-- Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tales be told. Amen."

Salt Water Poems and Ballads.

And it is a most fascinating story to see him climb from his boyhood,purely social, sympathetic interest in the outcast to that higher, thathighest social consciousness, vitalized with religion. Here, seems itto me, that those who possess true social consciousness must come atlast if they do their most effective work for the social regenerationof the world. Many have tremendous social consciousness, but no Christ.Christ himself is the very pulse beat of the social regeneration.Without him it must fail.

One feels, even here in his youth poems, however, a promise of thatdeeper Masefield that later finds his soul in "The Everlasting Mercy."

2. _Faith in Immortality_

In "Rest Her Soul," these haunting lines with that expression of a deepfaith found in "All that dies of her," we find a ray of light, whichslants through a small window of the man that is to be:

"On the black velvet covering her eyes Let the dull earth be thrown; Her's is the mightier silence of the skies, And long, quiet rest alone. Over the pure, dark, wistful eyes of her, O'er all the human, all that dies of her, Gently let flowers be strown."

Salt Water Poems and Ballads.

But most of these ballads, as their title suggests, are nothing morethan the very sea foam of which they speak, and whose tale they tell;as compared with that later, deeper verse of Christian hope andregeneration.

And then pass those ten years; ten years following the period of "TheSalt Water Ballads"; and ten years following the time when he was a"bar-boy" in New York; ten years in which he climbs from a simple"social consciousness" to a social consciousness that has the heartbeat of Christ in its every line. The poems he writes in this periodare all of the Christ. "Good Friday," perhaps the strongest poemdealing with this great day in Christ's life, is full of a closeknowledge of the spirit of the Man of Galilee. But it is in "TheEverlasting Mercy" and not "The Story of a Round House" that we findMasefield at his big best, battering at the very doors of eternity withthe fist of a giant and the tender love of a woman, and the plea of apenitent sinner.

Something had happened to Masefield in those ten years. A man's entirelife had been revolutionized; and his poetry with it. He still feelsthe want and need of the world, and the social injustice; but he hasfound the cure. In a word, he has been converted. I do not care whetheror no Masefield means to tell his own story in "The Everlasting Mercy,"but I do know that he tells, in spite of himself, a story that fitscuriously into, and marvelously explains, the strange revolution andchange in his own life from "Salt Water Ballads" to "Good Friday."

II. CONVERSION

It is an old-fashioned Methodist conversion of which he tells, whichlinks itself up with the New Testament gospel of the regeneration ofa human soul in such a fascinating way that it gives those of us whopreach this gospel an impelling, modern, dramatic putting of the old,old story, that will thrill our congregations and grip the hearts ofmen who know not the Christ.

1. _Conviction of Sin_

Saul Kane was an amateur prizefighter. He and his friend Bill have afight in the opening lines of the tale, and Saul wins. This victoryis followed by the usual debauch, which lasts until all the drunkencrowd are asleep on the floor of the "Lion." No Russian novelist, nora Dostoievesky, nor another, ever dared such realism as Masefield hasgiven us in his picture of this night's sin. He makes sin all that itis--black and hideous:

"From three long hours of gin and smokes, And two girls' breath and fifteen blokes, A warmish night and windows shut The room stank like a fox's gut. The heat, and smell, and drinking deep Began to stun the gang to sleep."

The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street.

But this was too much for Saul Kane. He had still enough decency leftto be ashamed. He wanted air. He went to a window and threw it open:

"I opened window wide and leaned Out of that pigsty of the fiend, And felt a cool wind go like grace About the sleeping market-place. The clock struck three, and sweetly, slowly, The bells chimed, Holy, Holy, Holy; And in a second's pause there fell The cold note of the chapel bell, And then a cock crew flapping wings, And summat made me think of things!"

The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street.

There it is: sin, and conviction of sin. Perhaps he thought of anotherman who had virtually betrayed the Christ, and the cock crew and madethat other "think o' things."

Then came the reaction from that conviction; the battle against thatsame conviction that he must give up sin and surrender to the Christ;and a terrific battle it is, and a terrific description of that battleMasefield gives us, lightninglike in its vividness until there comesthe little woman of God, Miss Bourne (a deaconess, if you please), whohas always known the better man in Saul, who has followed him with herChristly love like "The Hound of Heaven." And how tenderly, yet howinsistently, how pleadingly she speaks:

"'Saul Kane,' she said, 'when next you drink, Do me the gentleness to think That every drop of drink accursed Makes Christ within you die of thirst; That every dirty word you say Is one more flint upon His way, Another thorn about His head, Another mock by where He tread; Another nail another cross; All that you are is that Christ's loss.'"

The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street.

These searching words were beyond defeat. They went home to his alreadyconvicted heart and mind like arrows. They hurt. They cut. Theyawakened. They called. They pierced. They pounded with giant fists.They lashed like spiked whips. They burned like a soul on fire. Theyclamored, and they whispered like a mother's love, and at last hisheart opened:

2. _Forgiveness_

"I know the very words I said, They bayed like bloodhounds in my head. 'The water's going out to sea And there's a great moon calling me; But there's a great sun calls the moon, And all God's bells will carol soon For joy and glory, and delight Of some one coming home to-night.'"

The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street.

And then came the consciousness that he was "done with sin" forever:

"I knew that I had done with sin, I knew that Christ had given me birth To brother all the souls on earth,"

The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street.

which was followed by two "glories"--the "Glory of the Lighted Mind"and the "Glory of the Lighted Soul." I think that perhaps in ourpreaching on conversion we make too little of the regeneration of the"mind." Masefield does not miss one whit of a complete regeneration.

3. _The Joy of Conversion_

"O glory of the lighted mind. How dead I'd been, how dumb, how blind! The station brook to my new eyes Was babbling out of Paradise, The waters rushing from the rain Were singing, 'Christ has risen again!'"

The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street.

And then the soul glory:

"O glory of the lighted Soul. The dawn came up on Bradlow Knoll, The dawn with glittering on the grasses, The dawn which pass and never passes."

The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street.

But that wasn't all. Masefield knows that the other self must becompletely eradicated, so he makes Saul Kane change his environmententirely. He goes to the country. He plows, and as he plows he learnsthe lesson of the soil and cries:

"O Jesus, drive the coulter deep To plow my living man from sleep."

The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street.

And more word from Christ as he plowed:

"I knew that Christ was there with Callow, That Christ was standing there with me, That Christ had taught me what to be, That I should plow and as I plowed My Saviour Christ would sing aloud, And as I drove the clods apart Christ would be plowing in my heart, Through rest-harrow and bitter roots, Through all my bad life's rotten fruits."

The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street.

And so it is, that beginning with his poems of youth, John Masefieldstarts out with a sympathetic social consciousness, but nothing moreapparently. He brothers with the outcast and frankly prefers it. Thencomes the great regenerating influence in his life, which we surelyfind in his expression of faith that the soul is immortal, and finallythat upheaval which we call conversion with all of its incident stepsfrom conviction of sin to repentance; and then to the consciousness offorgiveness; to the lighted mind and the lighted soul; and then to theuprooting of evil and the planting of good in the soil of his life. Andso through Saul Kane we see John Masefield and have an explanation ofthat subtle yet revolutionary change in his life and his poetry,pregnant with illustrations that, to quote another English poet, Noyes,"Would make the dead arise!"

VIII

ROBERT SERVICE, POET OF VIRILITY[Footnote: The poetical selections appearing in this chapter are usedby permission, and are taken from the following works: The Spell of theYukon; Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, published by Barse & Hopkins, NewYork; Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, published by Dodd, Mead & Co., NewYork.]

A STUDY OF HIGH PEAKS AND HIGH HOPES; OF WHITE SNOWS AND WHITE LIVES;OF SIN AND DEATH; OF HEAVEN AND GOD

A preacher once preached a sermon, and in the opening moments of thissermon he quoted eight lines, and a layman said at the conclusion ofthis sermon, "Ah, the sermon was fine, but those lines that youquoted--they were tremendous; they gripped me!" And those lines werefrom Robert Service, the poet of the Alaskan ice-peaks, of the Yukon'sturbulent blue waters, of the great silences, of the high peaks andhigh hopes; of men and gold and sin and death.

And the lines that gripped the layman were:

"I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow That's plumb-full of hush to the brim; I've watched the big husky sun wallow In crimson and gold, and grow dim; Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming And the stars tumbled out neck and crop; And I've thought that I surely was dreaming With the peace o' the world piled on top."

The Spell of the Yukon.

[Illustration: ROBERT SERVICE.]

Everything that the great northland holds was dear to him and clear tohim and near to him. He knew it all as intimately as a child knows hisown backyard. He makes it as dear and near and clear too, to those whoread:

"The summer--no sweeter was ever, The sunshiny woods all athrill; The grayling aleap in the river, The bighorn asleep on the hill; The strong life that never knows harness, The wilds where the caribou call; The freedom, the freshness, the farness; O God! how I'm stuck on it all!"

The Spell of the Yukon.

Virile as the mountains that he has neighbored with; clean as the snowsthat have blinded his eyes, and made beautiful the valleys; subdued tolove of God through the height and the might of all that he sees, witha vigor that shakes one awake, he speaks, not forgetting the pines; forthe pines are kith and kin to the mountains and the snows:

"Wind of the East, wind of the West, wandering to and fro, Chant your hymns in our topmost limbs, that the sons of men may know That the peerless pine was the first to come, and the pine will be the last to go.

"Sun, moon, and stars give answer; shall we not staunchly stand Even as now, forever, wards of the wilder strand, Sentinels of the stillness, lords of the last, lone land?"

The Spell of the Yukon.

And these white peaks, and these lone sentinels lift one nearer to God:

"But the stars throng out in their glory, And they sing of the God in man; They sing of the Mighty Master, Of the loom his fingers span, Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole, And weft in the wondrous plan.

"Here by the camp-fire's flicker, Deep in my blanket curled, I long for the peace of the pine-gloom, Where the scroll of the Lord is unfurled, And the wind and the wave are silent, And world is singing to world."

The Spell of the Yukon.

"Have you strung your soul to silence?" he abruptly asks in "The Callof the Wild"; and again, another searching query, "Have you known thegreat White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver? (Eternal truthswhich shame our soothing lies.)" And again another query that rips thesoul open, and that tears off life's veneer:

"Have you suffered, starved, and triumphed, groveled down, yet grasped at glory, Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole? 'Done things,' just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story, See through the nice veneer the naked soul?"

The Spell of the Yukon.

and how his virile soul rings its tribute to the "silent men who dothings!"--the kind that the world finds once in a century for its greatneeds:

"The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things--."

The Spell of the Yukon.

SIN AND DEATH

The world is full of sin and death, and the former is so often thefather of the other. Service has seen this in the far, hard, cruelnorthland as no other can see it. The hollowness of material things helearns from this land of yellow gold, the very soul of the materialquest of the world. He learns that "It isn't the gold that we'rewanting, so much as just finding the gold:"

"There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting; It's luring me on as of old; Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting So much as just finding the gold. It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder, It's the forests where silence has lease; It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder, It's the stillness that fills me with peace."

The Spell of the Yukon.

Or another verse:

"I wanted the gold, and I sought it; I scrabbled and mucked like a slave. Was it famine or scurvy--I fought it; I hurled my youth into a grave. I wanted the gold, and I got it-- Came out with a fortune last fall-- Yet somehow life's not what I thought it, And somehow the gold isn't all."

The Spell of the Yukon.

Who has not learned that? Thank God for the lesson! Too many of us hurlour youths, aye, our lives into the grave learning that, and only cometo know at last that Joaquin Miller was right when he said,

"All you can take in your cold, dead hand Is what you have given away."

And how the warning against sin hurtles itsway into your soul; its grip; its age; its power:

"It grips you like some kinds of sinning; It twists you from foe to a friend; It seems it's been since the beginning; It seems it will be to the end."

The Spell of the Yukon.

Sin is like that. Service is right! Sin lures, and calls under theguise of beauty. But sin, as John Masefield shows in "The EverlastingMercy," is ugly. In the modern word of the street "Sin will get you."Service says the same thing in "It grips you."

GOD AND HEAVEN

Maybe you have never thought of God as the God of the trails andAlaskan reaches, but Service makes you see him as "The God of thetrails untrod" in "The Heart of the Sourdough." He does not leave Godout. Nor do these rough men of the avalanches, the frozen rivers, thegold trails, which are death trails. Indeed, these are the very men whoknow God, for do not their "Lives just hang by a hair"?

"I knew it would call, or soon or late, as it calls the whirring wings; It's the olden lure, it's the golden lure, it's the lure of the timeless things, And to-night, O, God of the trails untrod, how it whines in my heart-strings!"

The Spell of the Yukon.

This God leads to "The Land of Beyond," the heaven of the gold seeker:

"Thank God! there is always a Land of Beyond For us who are true to the trail; A vision to seek, a beckoning peak, A farness that never will fail; A pride in our soul that mocks at a goal, A manhood that irks at a bond, And try how we will, unattainable still, Behold it, our Land of Beyond!"

Rhymes of a Rolling Stone.

And the northman cannot forget death, as we have suggested, because heis face to face with it all the time, at every turn of a river; atevery jump from cake to floe, at every step of every trail:

JUST THINK!

"Just think! some night the stars will gleam Upon a cold, grey stone, And trace a name with silver beam, And lo! 'twill be your own,

"That night is speeding on to greet Your epitaphic rhyme. Your life is but a little beat Within the heart of Time.

"A little gain, a little pain, A laugh lest you may moan; A little blame, a little fame, A star-gleam on a stone."

Rhymes of a Rolling Stone.

Perhaps it is because the men of the north are always so near to deathand so conscious of death that they hold to the strict Puritanicalrules of conduct that they do, expressed in Service's "The Woman andthe Angel," that story of the Angel who came down to earth andwithstood all the temptations until he met the beautiful, sinningwoman, and who was about to fall. Hear her tempt him:

"Then sweetly she mocked his scruples, and softly she him beguiled: 'You, who are verily man among men, speak with the tongue of a child. We have outlived the old standards; we have burst like an overtight thong The ancient outworn, Puritanic traditions of Right and Wrong.'" "Then the Master feared for His angel, and called him again to His side, For O, the woman was wondrous, and O, the angel was tried! And deep in his hell sang the devil, and this was the strain of his song: 'The ancient, outworn, Puritanic traditions of Right and Wrong.'"

The Spell of the Yukon.

And I doubt not, but that we all need that warning not to give up "Theancient, outworn, Puritanic traditions of Right and Wrong."

RHYMES OF A RED CROSS MAN

Here it is that we find a consciousness of the Eternal creeping throughthe smoke and din and glare. Here, like the hard, dangerous life of theAlaskan trails, only harder and more dangerous; here amid war in "TheFool" we catch six last lines that thrill us:

"He died with the glory of faith in his eyes, And the glory of love in his heart. And though there's never a grave to tell, Nor a cross to mark his fall, Thank God we know that he "batted well" In the last great Game of all."

Rhymes of a Red Cross Man.

And even amid the terrible thunder of war the "Lark" sings, as Servicereminds us in his poem of that name, sings and points to heaven:

"Pure heart of song! do you not know That we are making earth a hell? Or is it that you try to show Life still is joy and all is well? Brave little wings! Ah, not in vain You beat into that bit of blue: Lo! we who pant in war's red rain Lift shining eyes, see Heaven too!"

Rhymes of a Red Cross Man.

To close this study of Service, which has run from the hard battleground of the Alaskan trails to the harder battle ground of France;which has run from a study of white peaks and white lives, to highpeaks and high hopes, through sin and death to heaven and the Fatherhimself, I quote the closing lines of Service's "The Song of the WageSlave," which will remind the reader in tone and spirit of Markham's"The Man with the Hoe":

"Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in thy many lands; Not by my sins wilt thou judge me, but by the work of my hands. Master, I've done thy bidding, and the light is low in the west, And the long, long shift is over--Master, I've earned it--Rest."

[Illustration: RUPERT BROOKE.]

IX

RUPERT BROOKE[Footnote: The poetical selections from the writings of Rupert Brookeappearing in this chapter are used by permission, and are taken fromThe Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke, published by John Lane Company,New York.]

PREACHER OF FRIENDSHIP, LOVE, COUNTRY, GODS, AND GOD

Wilfred Gibson expressed it for us all; voiced the sorrow and thehope in the death of Rupert Brooke, a victim of the Hun as well as thatother giant of art, the Rheims Cathedral; expressed it in these lineswritten shortly after Rupert Brooke died:

"He's gone. I do not understand. I only know That, as he turned to go And waved his hand, In his young eyes a sudden glory shone, And I was dazzled by a sunset glow-- And he was gone,"

Thanks, Wilfred Gibson, you who have made articulate the voice of thedowntrodden of the world, the poetic "Fires" which have lighted up withsudden glow the slums, the slag heaps, the factories, the coal mines,and hidden common ways of folks who toil; thanks that you have alsobeautifully lighted up the "End of the Trail" of your friend and ourfriend, Poet Rupert Brooke; lighted it with the light that shines frometernity. We owe you debt unpayable for that.

And you yourself, war-dead poet, you sang your end, full knowing thatit would come, as it did on foreign soil, far from the England that youloved and voiced so wondrously. And now these lines that you wrote ofyour own possible passing have new meaning for us who remain to mournyour going:

"If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam; A body of England's breathing, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

And so here, even in this hymn of your passing, you have given astriking illustration off one of your strongest characteristics, loveof homeland. Poet of Youth who left us so early in life, take yourplace along with Byron, and Shelley, and our own Seeger--a quartette ofimmortals, whose voices were heard, but, like the horns of Elfland,"faintly blowing" when they were hushed. Though you were but ayouthful voice, yet left you poetry worth listening to, and preached agospel that will make a better world, though it had not gone far enoughto save the world.

THE GOSPEL OF FRIENDSHIP

Among the few definite, outstanding gospels that Brooke preached isseen the gospel of friendship. In "The Jolly Company" he says:

"O white companionship! You only In love, in faith unbroken dwell, Friends, radiant and inseparable!"

"Light-hearted and glad they seemed to me And merry comrades, even so God out of heaven may laugh to see.--"

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

Then, again, in a poem which he called "Lines Written in the BeliefThat the Ancient Roman Festival of the Dead Was Called Ambarvalia," hevoices in an even more striking quatrain the immortality of friendship.What a thrill of hope runs through us here as we, who believe that lifebrings no richer gold than friendship, read this poet's thought thatfriendship too shall last beyond the years!

"And I know, one night, on some far height, In the tongue I never knew, I yet shall hear the tidings clear From them that were friends of you.--"

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

THE GOSPEL OF LOVE

And where Friendship sweeps into love who shall tell, or where thedividing line is? But while Brooks lived he forgot not love. His was athrobbing, beating love whose light was a beacon night and day; abeacon of which he was not ashamed. He set the fires of romantic loveburning and when he went away he left them burning so that their lightmight light the way for other poets and other lovers and othertravelers when they came. He believed, like Noyes, that love should notbe weak; that that was the great hope. Noyes said:

"But one thing is needful, and ye shall be true To yourselves and the goal and the God that ye seek; Yea, the day and the night shall requite it to you If ye love one another if your love be not weak."

From Collected Poems of Alfred Noyes.

Now I do not mean to suggest that the love that Brooke sang was exactlythe type that Noyes sang in these four lines. In fact, one feels adifference as he reads the two English poets, but they are alike inthat each agreed that Love should not be weak, whatever it was. Brookesang of romantic love, high and holy as that is; love of Youth forMaiden, lad for lass, and man for woman; and thank God for the highclean song that he gave to it in such lines as in "The Great Lover":

"Love is a flame;--we have beaconed the world's night. A city:--and we have built it, these and I. An emperor:--we have taught the world to die."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

And again in that same great poem:

"--Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake, And give what's left of love again, and make New friends, now strangers...."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

THE GOSPEL OF LOVE FOR ONE'S COUNTRY

And who shall say where the line of cleavage is between that love whichclings to Friends; and that greater or conjugal love which moulds manand woman into one; and love for children, blood of one's blood, andlove of country; and love of God? I say that those who are truly thegreat Lovers of the world love all of these and that not one isomitted. At least the truly great Lovers have the capacity for loveof all these types. I have found no expression of paternal love inBrooke, for he had not come to that great experience of life beforeDeath claimed him. And because Death robbed him of that experienceDeath robbed us of a rare interpretation of that special type of Love.But of all these other types which I have mentioned we have a clearexpression in the slender volume of poems that he left us as ourheritage from his estate. And, since we have already read one beautifulexpression of this love for his country in the opening paragraphs ofthis chapter, we will add here another stanza of that noble expressionof his love for old England.

"And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

What a voice for the times! What a voice for America! Would that someAmerican Brooke might arise to sing this same deep song.

A GOSPEL OF THE GODS

Rupert Brooke had a wide range of interests as indeed any great Loverof Life and living must have. He expressed the hopelessness of theheathen gods in a poem which he called "On the Death of Smet-Smet, theHippopotomus-Goddess" in lines that fairly sparkle with the electricityof destruction and sarcasm:

"She was wrinkled and huge and hideous? She was our Mother. She was lustful and lewd?--but a God; we had none other. In the day She was hidden and dumb, but at nightfall moaned in the shade; We shuddered and gave Her Her will in the darkness; we were afraid.

(The People without)

"She sent us pain, And we bowed before Her; She smiled again And bade us adore Her. She solaced our woe And soothed our sighing; And what shall we do Now God is dying?"

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

And so it was that with the deepest sense of understanding, with thedeepest sympathy, without intolerance Brooke, in this one verse setsthe Heathen gods where they belong and sets us where we belong in ourrelations to those who worship these gods and goddesses. It is all theyhave. We have no right to sneer and scorn until we are able to givethem better. These poor Egyptians knew no other God. They saidplaintively "but a God; we have none other"; and "And what shall we donow God is dying?" The crime of destroying faith in a lesser god untilone has seen and can make seeable the real God is the greatest crime ofcivilization. And to this writer's way of thinking there is no greatersin than that of Intolerance; a sin to which a certain portion of theinstitutionalized church is prone. Noyes shot the fist of indignationat this type of intolerance straight from a manly shoulder when hesaid:

"How foolish, then, you will agree Are those who think that all must see The world alike, or those who scorn Another who, perchance, was born Where in a different dream from theirs What they called Sin to him were prayers?"

The Collected Poems of Alfred Noyes.

Brooke saw the same thing and had great tolerance for those whoworshipped the "unknown gods"; worshipped the best they knew, althoughit were a feeble worship. He understood their outcry that they knew notwhat to do, now that their god was dying:

"She was so strong; But death is stronger. She ruled us long; But time is longer. She solaced our woe And soothed our sighing; And what shall we do Now God is dying?"

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

THE GOSPEL OF ONE GOD

Then sweeping upward, although one must admit, with groping, reachingeagerness, this young poet tried to find, and at last did find, the oneGod. He mentions this God that he found more than any other one thingabout which he wrote, so far as I can find. In one slender volume aremore than a dozen striking references. Take for example the lastfifteen lines of "The Song of the Pilgrims":

"O Thou, God of all long desirous roaming, Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing, And crying after lost desire. Hearten us onward! as with fire Consuming dreams of other bliss. The best Thou givest, giving this Sufficient thing--to travel still Over the plain, beyond the hill, Unhesitating through the shade, Amid the silence unafraid, Till, at some hidden turn, one sees Against the black and muttering trees Thine altar, wonderfully white, Among the Forests of the Night."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

Or again, from "Ambarvalia":

"But laughing and half-way up to heaven, With wind and hill and star, I yet shall keep before I sleep, Your Ambarvalia."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

Immortality, which goes hand in hand with the God of immortality, theGod of the "Everlasting Arms," is voiced in "Dining-Room Tea," a poemaddressed to one whom he loved:

"For suddenly, and other whence, I looked on your magnificence. I saw the stillness and the light, And you, august, immortal, white, Holy and strange; and every glint, Posture and jest and thought and tint Freed from the mask of transiency, Triumphant in eternity, Immote, immortal."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

Then, speaking of the war and peace with great yearning and greatfaith, the young poet cried a new glory in what he calls "God'sHour" in a poem on "Peace":

"Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, And caught our youth and wakened us from sleeping, With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping."

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

And who has not felt this, but has not been able to thus express it?And who has not seen that somehow, strangely, mysteriously, wondrously,the youth not only of England, but of America has leaped to "God'sHour," as Brooke calls this war; leaped from play, and fromlistlessness in spiritual things; leaped from indifference to things ofthe eternities; leaped to a magnificent heroism, selflessness,sacrifice, brotherhood; leaped to a new and Godlike nobility.

To all who mourn for their dead lads comes the cheering word of Brooke,who himself paid the great debt of love. It comes out of a poem called"Safety." Read it, you who mourn, and be comforted:

"Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest He who has found our hid security, Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, And hear our word, 'Who is so safe as we?' 'We have found safety with all things undying!'"

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke.

"We have found safety with all things undying." Brooke heard God's wordas did the prophet of old crying, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,saith the Lord," and this sonnet comes as a personal message tomourning mother and father in America. As they listen they hear thevoices of those they loved crying: "Who is so safe as we? We havefound safety with all things undying." Thank God that this poet, thoughyoung, lived long enough, and saw enough of war and death to give thisheartening word to a world which weeps and wearies with war and woe andwant! Thus in this new immortality we shall

"Learn all we lacked before; hear, know and say What this tumultuous body now denies: And feel, who have laid our groping hands away; And see, no longer blinded by our eyes."